Mizzou Mob Tramples First Amendment

You have to watch this video clip. It shows a brave student journalist, photographer Tim Tai, holding his ground against a mob of Social Justice Warrior fanatics. He tries to tell them that he has a First Amendment right to be there photographing their protest, which was happening in a public place, but they refuse to listen, and bully him — at the end, physically.

One of the bullies is Prof. Melissa Click, who teaches, get this, in the communications department at the university. She can be heard in the beginning ordering the photographer away, and instructing the students to drive him off. From her faculty page:

Dr. Melissa A. Click earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her research interests center on popular culture texts and audiences, particularly texts and audiences

Melissa Click

disdained in mainstream culture. Her work in this area is guided by audience studies, theories of gender and sexuality, and media literacy. Current research projects involve 50 Shades of Grey readers, the impact of social media in fans’ relationship with Lady Gaga, masculinity and male fans, messages about class and food in reality television programming, and messages about work in children’s television programs. Melissa is Vice-Chair of ICA’s Popular Communication Division and is Chair of the committee hosting the Console-ing Passions conference at the University of Missouri in April 2014.

So you have on this video a college journalist having to school a communications Ph.D. in the First Amendment. I suppose this Social Justice Warrior Queen was too busy studying Lady Gaga and Fifty Shades of Grey to pay attention to the Constitution of the United States.

This is the kind of fanatic that the University of Missouri board has capitulated to. They gave in to a student mob, instigated in this instance by a radical professor, that shoves a journalist off of public land, where he has a perfect right to be.

The University of Missouri ought to be standing with Tim Tai and his colleagues, and against the thuggish Melissa Clark and her mob. So should the faculty and students there. Honestly, a communications professor urging a mob to shut down a journalist. At the end of the video, before a wall of students shoves photojournalist Tai out of the way, Click is heard shouting, ““Hey who wants to help me get this reporter out of here. I need some muscle over here!”

“The board of curators will not tolerate hateful activities on our campuses – period,” said Cupps. “We are taking additional measures beginning today to ensure that our campuses are free of acts of hatred, so that our campuses all embody a culture of respect.”

Today the board announced a series of initiatives to be implemented over the next 90 days to address the racial climate on its campuses, including:

A first-ever Chief Diversity, Inclusion and Equity Officer will be appointed for the UM System. Accountability and metrics will be established for the position going forward;

A full review will be initiated of all UM System policies as they relate to staff and student conduct;

Additional support will be provided for students, faculty and staff who have experienced discrimination and disparate treatment.

Additional support will be provided for the hiring and retention of diverse faculty and staff;

In addition, the board announced its plan to ensure effective next steps through an open communication process that invites perspective from across the system. These steps are to:

Create a diversity, inclusion and equity task force to develop both a short- and long-term strategy, plan and metrics for the UM System based on an inventory and audit of current programs, policies and practices.

Ensure that each UM System campus has a Chief Diversity, Inclusion and Equity Officer reporting to the chancellor;

Launch a diversity, inclusion and equity leadership training and development education program, which includes the board of curators, president and administrative leadership, followed by broader faculty and staff training.

Specifically, on the MU campus:

There is a process in place to identify external diversity, inclusion and equity consultants to conduct a comprehensive assessment of diversity and inclusion efforts on campus.

There will be mandatory diversity, inclusion and equity training for all faculty, staff and future incoming students.

We will continue the comprehensive review of student mental health services to ensure that students are referred to the most appropriate resources for their needs.

Let’s re-read this part, shall we?:

“The board of curators will not tolerate hateful activities on our campuses – period,” said Cupps. “We are taking additional measures beginning today to ensure that our campuses are free of acts of hatred, so that our campuses all embody a culture of respect.”

Bull. The board of curators is quite happy to allow disrespect for the First Amendment, for student journalists, and, you watch, for anybody else who stands up to this SJW mob. Cowards, the lot. And now they’re mandating political re-education for “all faculty, staff, and future incoming students.”

Melissa Click resigned Tuesday night,right before The Missouri Shool of Journalism executive committee was about to take a vote on the incident.

They also said Click received threats.

What goes around,appears to have come around.

[NFR: I greatly regret that she received a single threat. Note well, though, that she did not resign from the university, only her additional appointment to teach in the J-school. She remains on faculty at the Communications Department, which is a different place. — RD]

Rob, while much of your work contributes to the necessary realignment of our cultural slippage employing the rhetoric of the fanatic diminishes the seriousness of the issue. Let’s not stoop to their level, please

You’ll get no argument from me that there are other actions many of these folks could take that would produce more benefit for their intended beneficiaries, but that critique could be leveled at just about every person who’s trying to do something good in any sphere. I’m reluctant to make perfection the enemy of the good.

So, yes, these people absolutely could be wiser or more effective, but yours is one of the few critiques that focuses exclusively, or even primarily, on the efficacy of their tactics. I have no problem at all with that kind of critique. I also think these folks’ stated objectives can be fair game as well if one genuinely disagrees.

However, the frequent critique is nothing more than an ad hominem attack. “These people are white, so why are they so bothered by the the unfairness experienced by minorities? They go to elite universities so what could they really know or care about police brutality in poor, black neighborhoods? They’re taking these steps just to salve feelings of white guilt.” In short, they have no right to try to make things better for people who aren’t members of their own tribe. A really strange way of thinking, this.

Why impugn their character? If their objectives or their tactics are really a bad idea or counter-productive, why not say so plainly and then explain why that’s the case?